Laurence Walter Meynell (9 August 1899[1] – 14 April 1989) was the English author of over 150 books, who wrote also as Valerie Baxter, Robert Eton, Geoffrey Ludlow and A. Stephen Tring.
He was sent to the oldest Catholic boarding school in the country, St Edmund's College, Ware, and then served in the artillery in the First World War.
[2] Meynell wrote juvenile literature as Valerie Baxter and A. Stephen Tring.
He also wrote detective fiction, with a recurring private-eye character, Hooky Hefferman.
He had one daughter, Ann Meynell b London 1938 by his first wife, Shirley Ruth Darbyshire (1903–1955).